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Chapter 13
\\\ Ben ///
I'd never
felt anger like that before. I was more
shocked than angry when Nick told us what his dad had done in the past, but
seeing the anguish that he was going through now, because of that bastard, made
me want to track Brandon down and beat the shit out of him. After Nick had calmed down some more Josh
apologised to Nick for being rude to him earlier and told him he'd be welcome
back at the farm any time he wanted to come over. Alex then offered to take him home with
Sammie along for the ride, leaving me behind with Lucas and Josh.
When Sammie
returned home we decided to head into town to meet up with the Fleeks to work
out a plan. We didn't know if Brandon
would ever show up but we decided that we didn't want to leave Nick alone just
in case. There was only one more week of
school left before the October half term break so it would be easy enough to
keep tabs on him while we were there.
Danny and I would walk to and from school with him every day; while
anyone who was in a class with him would make sure they walked to and from that
class with him as much as they could. We
weren't too worried about anything happening in the school building but any
time we were away from there we'd stick to him like glue.
Uncle Luke
also made sure to be around them a lot more, which he didn't mind at all as he
and Summer seemed to be infatuated with each other. He also wanted to build a relationship with
Nick as they could end up living under the same roof if all went well. We didn't need to worry though as nothing
untoward happened during the week. As
the days wore on we started to forget about keeping Nick secure, and just hung
out as a big group of friends. The main
topic of the week soon turned to the Halloween fright night and what the
teachers would have instore for us in their house of horrors this year. We already knew it was going to be some sort
of genetics lab but we didn't know what type of monsters or scares they'd use
on us.
We tried a
couple of times to sneak a peek through the doors to the performing arts block
but all the windows were blacked out.
The teachers would also use lesson times to sneak in any props or
decorations they'd need so that no one was around to see them. We did get to see how the auditorium was
shaping up though, and it seemed to be tied in with the lab theme. There was biohazard tape everywhere as well
as warning signs and anything else they could use to make it look less like a
school. By the end of the week the
lighting rig was up and the place was all set for the dance, all that was left
was the DJ (not Josh of course) to kick out some tunes and it would be a fun
night.
When it
finally came to the night we were all probably far too excited for it than we
should have been at our age. I couldn't
help it though, my dad owned a bunch of comic shops for crying out loud and his
best friends used to cosplay in some awesome costumes, some of which take pride
of place in the different stores. I knew
Lucas and Sammie were looking forward to it as their grandma, who had always
helped her mother create Josh and Alex's costumes over the years, had come back
to town to help us get our own costumes ready.
Danny and I got a lift from Uncle Luke to Nick's house as he was helping
to chaperone the night with Summer. The
school always asked for parents to volunteer as some of the teachers were in
the house of horrors, scaring the crap out of us, so they needed a few extra
people around to keep things in order.
When we
arrived Nick was already in his costume but I was less than impressed with
it. He was meant to be a zombie but the
clothes were far too...neat. The trousers
were ok but his shirt had some rather precise looking cuts in it which just
looked crap, so after digging out an older shirt from his wardrobe I set about
tearing it up a bit more roughly before taking the whole outfit into the garden
to dirty it up a bit. When he finally
tried it on it all looked much more authentic, all he needed to complete it was
the makeup. He showed me some cheap,
crappy stuff he'd bought but luckily I had brought some of my own.
Over the
years I'd learned how to do some pretty good scars and welts so I put a few of
those on his face and arms, as well as making his skin look pastier. After I was done he looked pretty good, and I
was able to show him how to do the scars as well so he could help me with my
own makeup. This year Sammie and I were
going as Joker and Harley Quinn so I'd gotten a pretty decent looking purple
suit made up and used some temporary green hair dye to complete the look. Once the makeup was done I looked pretty
awesome. Finally we turned to Danny, who
had decided to go as Chuckie from the Child's Play movies. All he really needed was a stripy shirt, some
dungarees and a red wig and he was all set, although after seeing Nick's scars
he decided he wanted a few as well.
Once we were
all done Uncle Luke drove us all to the school where we were going to meet up
with everyone else. I knew what Lucas
and Sammie were going as but I wasn't sure about Tom and Noah. I had a pretty good idea what to expect from
Jamie, even though I hoped this year would be different. When we parked up you could see kids
everywhere in all sorts of different costumes, some people were easier to
recognise than others though as some of the masks completely obscured their
faces.
We agreed to
meet near our lockers as it would be too loud in the main hall so we all hung
out there until the others arrived. Noah
was the first to arrive dressed as a ghost, but rather than the usual sheet with
holes in he actually dressed like he was from Victorian times, except that the
costume and his skin was all pretty much white.
Aaron was with him dressed as a ghostly pirate in much the same way. As quickly as he came to greet us he dashed
off into the main hall to find his friends while we waited around for the
others. Lucas and Sammie arrived pretty
soon and their costumes were incredible.
I thought Nick made a pretty good zombie but Lucas had decided to go
with the same type of costume and it looked so much better, he even had pus
oozing from his scars and wore contact lenses that made his eyes look
milky.
Sammie on
the other hand had dyed her hair blond and wore a figure hugging, leather
outfit, complete with buckles and chains all over, just like Harley wore in the
Arkham games. Seeing her dressed like
that was a major turn on and even though I'd been worried about smudging my
makeup I suddenly didn't care. I pulled her
into a passionate kiss – well ok, she let me pull her into a kiss – and I could
hear Lucas groaning in the background.
"I knew I
should've made you wear something else tonight." Lucas said.
"You
could've tried little bro but you know it wouldn't have ended well." She replied with a smirk when we broke apart.
"You're 8
minutes older than me and you know I've never been smaller than you." Lucas replied in a huff. I found myself feeling very fortunate that
I'd never been around these two when they'd fought each other, although I could
quite imagine Lucas being the bigger sibling when they did.
"Jeez, you
two are as bad as my dad and uncle." I
added with a chuckle. Before any more
could be said I suddenly heard Danny burst out laughing and when we turned to
see why we all cracked up. Tom had
arrived with a cheap looking rabbit outfit but with tyre tracks and blood
stains across the body as well as what looked like organs hanging out in random
places.
"Ok, so
tonight I learnt the importance of looking both ways before crossing the
road." He said as he came over, making
us laugh even harder. Jamie was the last
one to join us and his costume certainly lived up to my expectations. As usual he turned up in his normal clothes,
only this year he had a cap on saying Teen Wolf and a little sticker on his
chest saying `Hello I'm...A Werewolf."
Nick took one look at him and I could see he was completely bewildered.
"Really? This again?"
I asked.
"What're you
supposed to be?" Lucas asked.
"A werewolf,
see? It says so right here." Jamie replied, bursting with pride as he
pointed to his sticker.
"Aren't
werewolves...you know, hairier?" Nick
chimed in.
"Well
yeah." A big smile crept over Jamie's
face. "But it's not a full moon
tonight."
"For cryin'
out loud, this is nearly as lame as last year."
Tom complained, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation.
"What was
wrong with last year?" Lucas asked.
"He wore
pretty much the same thing but with two drops of blood on his neck claiming
he'd just been bitten by a vampire and was going to turn sometime soon." I said.
"Yeah,
so?" He still looked confused.
"So he still
hasn't turned into a vampire a whole fucking year later!!" Tom shouted and I saw Nick and the others
burst out laughing, even though Tom was still mad at Jamie.
We all
followed the sound of the thumping music into the auditorium where Mr Evans was
up on the stage as the DJ for the whole thing, clearly having acquired an
awesome lighting rig from some of his dad's contacts. There was a buffet table set up near the back
of the hall with enough snacks to feed a small army, or Lucas and Sammie's
family; and we could see a couple of teachers and a few parents dotted around
the dance floor, keeping an eye on everything.
We were told the tours of the house of horrors would start in about
twenty minutes so we all decided to hit the dance floor, with Lucas and his
friends impressing everybody whenever a song came on that they'd done
choreography for in the past. Lucas even
went to request a song with a pretty easy dance routine and soon had the whole
crowd joining in. It was so easy to lose
track of time and before we knew it some people had left the dance floor to
take their turn in the house of horrors so we decided it was about time we went
for it.
When we
reached the main corridor to the performing arts building we were told we would
be going in groups of twelve, so that meant we would be joining up with
another, smaller group to make up the numbers.
There were quite a few individuals and groups of kids in the corridor,
all waiting for their turn to go through, so the teachers moved people together
to form the different tour parties.
Eventually there was me, Sammie, Tom, Lucas, Danny, Noah, Jamie and
Nick, together with another guy from my geography class called Robbie Jacobs
and his friend, and then two other random kids made up the numbers. One was dressed like Michael Myers while the
other dressed as Jason Voorhees but I wasn't too sure who they were underneath
the masks, I just assumed they knew each other as they had similar taste in
costumes. Hopefully they didn't scream
too much in this place. Soon enough Miss
Hardcastle, one of the science teachers, arrived to be our tour guide and we
eagerly got underway.
When it was
our turn to enter the house of horrors I was actually surprised at how much
effort had gone into it. Even though
there were monitors and scientific equipment everywhere you could still see
little hints to the music rooms or where they hadn't quite covered up the sign
for the wardrobe department properly.
All in all though it looked a lot like a proper lab facility. They even had videos playing on big monitors
which were meant to be windows into the different labs, showing various
scientists conducting experiments and moving samples around. The initial part of the tour consisted of us
being taken around the ground floor of the facility and the story was that they
were working on a cure for a disease, which you could see them testing on
various animals in the labs, although Miss Hardcastle did break character for a
minute to assure us that no animals were actually being harmed in the facility.
The tour
then took us upstairs where they showed us one lab, again through a window
which was really just a video screen.
Inside that lab was where they did the animal testing and as we looked
on we briefly saw one of the rats bite a scientist, who then started to have a
reaction to it. Other scientists quickly
rushed to help but it looked like it was fatal.
When we were ushered along there was suddenly a strange growl from the
lab behind us. Looking back we saw the
supposedly dead scientist rise up again and start attacking the other
scientists. It was pretty graphic as
well because blood was splattering up the `window' as the scientist bit into
them. Miss Hardcastle swiftly ushered us
along so they could seal off the area and as we hurried down the corridor the
lights abruptly went out.
We stood
there in the pitch black for a few seconds and heard a few grunts and groans
coming from the corridor we just came from.
When the emergency lights came on we could see what looked like a couple
of zombie doctors shuffling around at the end of the corridor. Miss Hardcastle quietly ushered us into
another corridor – which was actually the dance studio divided up by some false
walls – but as the last member of the party was just getting to the door the
`zombies' suddenly noticed us and started running straight at us, screaming and
snarling as they came barrelling down the corridor. We quickly barricaded the door with a couple
of tables but then heard more grunting from behind one of the false walls
they'd set up to make the room seem smaller.
Miss Hardcastle signalled for us to keep quiet as we started to sneak
through the corridors, keeping a listen out for noises as we went. The only lighting in the corridors was from
the red, emergency beacons flashing all around us and, even though I knew this
was all fake, it was still pretty scary wondering what was going to happen
next.
Soon we
rounded one corner to be greeted by one of the infected scientists looking
straight at us. As it readied itself to
charge at us we jumped out of our skins when there was a loud bang behind us
and we turned to see a security guard with a gun, although obviously a fake
one, firing shots at the scientist. As
that one dropped to the ground there were more snarls and groans coming from
all around us. The security guard
shouted for us to run and we were soon dodging through the corridors behind
Miss Hardcastle as more shots rang out behind us. The corridors were pretty dark and still only
illuminated by the red, flashing lights which added to the urgency. There was a fire exit on this floor that had
emergency stairs leading back into the main school building so we were all
directed that way. At the bottom of the
staircase was a door leading into the school as well as an exit to the
outside. We followed Miss Hardcastle
into the school building and as we did there were more `zombies' coming at us
from the sides, with security guards jumping out of nowhere to protect us.
Finally we
made it out of the facility and into the main building where we were told it
was all safe again. My heart was
absolutely pounding as, even though it was fake, they still made you want to
run for your lives. As we stood there
catching our breath, Uncle Luke and Summer came up to see how scared we were.
"So how was
it? Anyone need a change of underwear?" Luke grinned.
"Holy shit
that was better than last year." I
exclaimed. Looking around I could see
the others breathing hard as the adrenaline started to wear off, and even Lucas
looked like his heart was racing.
"That's the
first time I've been through one of those, and I think possibly the last." Lucas said.
"I nearly punched one of those security guards when he jumped out in
front of me. What did you think
Nick?" We turned around to see what he'd
say but quickly realised he wasn't with us.
"Wait, where
is he?" Jamie asked.
"Probably
went to empty his underwear." Tom
replied.
"No, he
would've had to go past his mum to go to the toilets. And where's Danny?" I looked around our tour group to see that
we'd also lost another member. Whoever
was dressed as Michael Myers had gone missing as well. I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. I quickly grabbed my phone to call Danny and
when it connected I could hear him running and Nick shouting in the
background. "Danny what the fuck is
going on?!? Where are you?!?"
"GET
OUTSIDE, NOW!!! HE'S GOT NICK!!" The call quickly disconnected but I knew
exactly what Danny meant. Brandon was
here.